It is a huge subject, but don't let that scare you away.
Web services is really an amazingly simple and elegant solution to a problem that has plagued our industry for ... well, forever. There have been a few people bad mouthing Web services, but in my opinion their either clueless or perhaps suffering from head trauma. If you've worked in the business of integration (A2A or B2B) for longer than a week, than Web services will look pretty good to you. There have only been two other technologies that have had as much industry support as Web services and that's
Java and XML � anyone think those topics aren�t worth learning?
This subject is worth studying. The Sun
test is hard, no doubt about it, but its not beyond any of you. With a little hard work and lots of reading you'll be prepared and you'll have a lot better understanding of Web services too.